


Once Upon a Clusterf —

by darth_stitch



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Maleficent (2014), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Bucky Barnes is an Actual Disney Prince, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Crack, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Humor, M/M, Romance, Steve is a Disney Princess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 05:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1970379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darth_stitch/pseuds/darth_stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Steve and Bucky Fairy Tale, by the one and only Clint Barton</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Clusterf —

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [The Blanket Fort](http://darthstitch.tumblr.com/post/90315902746/once-upon-a-clusterf-%0Aa-fairy-tale-by-clint)
> 
> **Disclaimer:** It all belongs to Marvel and Disney. I'll put 'em back in the toybox when I'm done.

I’m told that this isn’t the way you’re supposed to start a fairy tale but hey, I like to be original and seriously, this was really appropriate, considering things.   
  
I’m writing this from the safety of my own Blanket and Pillow Nest, so that way, Nat won’t get to twhap me upside the head for at least the length of time it’s going to take to tell this story.  I mean, cognitive recalibration - Natasha Romanoff-style kinda _hurts._   It’s handy, but it still fucking hurts, y’know?   
  
So anyway, I’m sure you’ve all heard the Epic Saga of How Captain America (with a little help from his friends) Managed to Find Bucky Barnes a.k.a. the Winter Soldier and bring him home.  And I’m sure you can imagine the metric fuckton of therapy and all the other stuff they needed to do to help him get his head on straight - for a given definition of getting one’s head on straight.  I mean, I had to deal with my own version of getting fucked up in the head courtesy of goddamn Loki and that was what, a few days? Barnes had _seventy years_ of this shit to get through.    
  
A few days, seventy years - you still get the nightmares, the guilt and the pain.  It ain’t no picnic.    
  
So no, you don’t get to magically get over this but you know, eventually, you reach the stage where you cope and you deal with it and you get on with the business of living because you don’t want to give the bastards the satisfaction of taking away one more choice from you.  And yeah, sometimes you just wake up and you want nothing more than to crawl back into bed and try to forget the rest of the world exists.  That’s okay too.   
  
Sometimes it helps to have somebody who’s got your back.  For me, that was Nat.    
  
And I’m sure all of you won’t be surprised that for Barnes, it was Steve.    
  
So maybe I shouldn’t be pointing any fingers because what Nat and I have together is complicated but still, you know, I was just as surprised as everybody else that Steve and Bucky aren’t actually dating.    
  
"You mean Red October and Sparkly Spangles aren’t having epic reunion sex at all?  Are you telling me that we’ve been having nothing but serious pining, longing looks and obliviousness so thick that it could make a grown man cry?  Look, I’m crying.  Seriously.  I’m really crying.  This is a national tragedy!"  So that would be Tony’s reaction and please thank me that I’m not quoting him in full.  He ranted like this for about 30 minutes.    
  
I mean, Nat took it hard too.  All that work of trying to hook Steve up with all these eligible ladies and it turns out he’s _pining_ for tall, dark and Russian - okay, Barnes says he’s really _Romanian_ so okay, I’ll amend that to pining for tall, dark and sparkly bloodsucker.    
  
What?  You guys weren’t in Budapest.  Don’t judge me.    
  
"I don’t suppose any of you realize that this could really be just a simple, very close but still _platonic_ friendship like what Riley and I got, yeah?”  Sam Wilson tries to be the other voice of sanity in our group because Rhodes and Banner always complain about feeling outnumbered as the Only Sane Ones among our nutty bunch.    
  
We all stare at him.  Rhodes and Banner included.  Wilson throws up his hands.  “Fine.  Forget I even tried to bring up the subject.”  
  
"You’ve _seen_ Steve’s face, right?  I mean, I am serious besties with Tony Stark here — ”    
  
"I love you too, Rhodey-snookums."  
  
" — and dude, that is _not_ the way I look at my bestie.  And seriously, Barnes has it bad too.”    
  
"Center of his universe," Nat says morosely.  "I never thought I would actually see the _literal_ definition of _'look at you like the center of my universe'_ from the Winter Soldier.”    
  
So okay, I actually try to get the lowdown from _both_ parties involved and please don’t look at me like that, I’m a spy.  I know I don’t look it but I know how to get information and shit done okay?  And look, it’s always best to go into these things knowing everything you can.  Confirm everything.  Don’t operate on assumptions or you end up being an ass.   
  
And fine, it’s enough to make a grown man cry.    
  
Really.  I’m serious.  Pining.  Epic yearning for over _ninety fucking years_ and both of them still think that “romantic advances” (Steve’s phrase, not mine) would not be welcomed by the other guy.  “Oh, Bucky’s always had an eye for the dames” and “Christ, you should’ve seen the way Steve looked at Peggy.  She would’ve been good for him” - really, this was just so fucking _sad._    
  
I will take the opportunity to apologize to Nat for finishing off her last bottle of the really good vodka.  Nat, after the conversations I had with your two idiots, I really, really _needed_ the fucking drink.    
  
So here we all are, trying to figure out ways to get our Geriatric Super Soldiers together because if anybody deserved a little happiness, it would be those two idiots and really, we were all beginning to choke on the UST.  But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the brief period of time I’ve known him, it is that Steven Grant Rogers is a Trouble Magnet of the Highest Order.   
  
Also, try to avoid fairies if you can help it.    
  
Generally speaking, it’s a fantastic idea to leave most supernatural creatures alone - they just wanna live and let live like the rest of us.  But fairies.  Seriously.  Even when they’re trying to be _helpful_ , the possibilities of clusterfuckery are _endless_.  I’d take what happened in Budapest any day over dealing with fairy shit - at least I could just hit the goddamn vampires in the heart and get it over with.    
  
So Steve’s got his Irish heritage and as hard as it may be to believe, when you see him kicking serious ass on the battlefield, he’s actually a very nice guy when things are relatively peaceful.  I mean, he’s not a saint - he’s a little trolling shit when the mood strikes him and his other nickname is Captain Sass-merica.  But just like in the fairy tales, Steven Rogers has what we call a “pure and kind heart.”  And Steve knows how to give proper respect to the Fairy Folk.    
  
It’s that pure and kind heart that makes him offer a helping hand to the Faerie Queen who lives in an apartment next door to the one Steve and Barnes have in Brooklyn.  The Faerie happens to be the Great Queen of the Moor - which happens to be Central Park now - and the reason why she’s walking about in the Human World is because she’s keeping an eye on her beloved goddaughter.  It just so happens that Steve Rogers saves her goddaughter from a bunch of assholes who like preying on young girls and now said assholes aren’t going to do that to anyone else.    
  
But the Faerie Queen is grateful and Faeries like giving rewards to people like Steve, whose “pure and kind hearts are a rarity in this world.”  So Her Majesty casts a spell where she wishes that Steve may find happiness and his One True Love.   
  
Boom.  Down Steve Rogers goes.  Out like a light.  Hello, Captain Sleeping Beauty.  (He really is, what with those absolutely _ridiculous_ eyelashes and the lips and hey, I’ve got a working set of eyes.  I’m just appreciating, okay?)  
  
So I’m the one who first gets the call from this very nice young lady who introduces herself as Aurora and tells me that her “godmother really didn’t mean him any harm!”  I’m the one who ends up carrying  Steve’s heavy ass all the way back to his apartment because Nat and Barnes are out on a mission and they’d be coming in the next day.  I’m the one who deals with Tony panicking because at this point, all of us know how overprotective Sergeant Dracula is over “Stevie” and I’m the one who gets Thor to come over and see if he could do anything with this kind of spell, only to be told that “Verily, only the kiss from his One True Love can wake our Captain.”  
  
"And are we talking _romantic_ love or is there any other kind because there’s all sorts of ‘true love’ out there,” I ask.    
  
Aurora shakes her head.  Apparently, her godmother had divined that Steve was only thinking of a Very Specific Person when she’d cast her spell and we were definitely talking about romantic true love, not any other kind.    
  
Yeah, three guesses who _that_ is, no prizes.    
  
"But Peggy’s… _gone_ ,” Barnes protests when he and Nat finally make it home and we had to break the news to them.  Well, I edited out some stuff.  I even got Thor to play along and man, is that guy ever delighted to play Cupid!    
  
I try to keep Nat from banging her head on the dinner table.  I don’t bother with Tony or Bruce.    
  
"Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but there’s only one person in this room who’s even _closest_ to the One True Love thing for Steve and it sure as hell ain’t us,”  I tell him.  
  
"There are all sorts of ‘love’ and if one feels it deeply, in the depths of their soul, if it is selfless and without expectation of reward, then it can only be true," Thor pronounces.  See?  It’s good to have a God on your side.    
  
So Barnes goes into the bedroom he and Steve share - and yeah, I know, they actually share a bed together but they don’t do anything but sleep in there - fucking tragic, right?    
  
Again, I stress on the fact that _nobody_ looks at their best friend the way Bucky Barnes looks at Steve Rogers and call it “just being besties.”  I mean, seriously, the whole _you’re my entire world_ thing should be the absolute worst cliche but not with these two.    
  
He bends over and pecks Steve on the forehead.    
  
Steve doesn’t stir.   
  
I lose it.  “Okay, Barnes, fucking stop messing around here.  Do you love Steve Rogers or not?”    
  
He glares at me and okay, _brr_ , there’s the Winter Soldier right there and boy am I glad neither of us are armed right this second.  “I’ve loved this punk since even before I figured out what it’s supposed to be.  You wanna get to the point of this?”   
  
I ain’t giving him an inch.  “And if he really doesn’t love you back, if all he feels for you really is friendship, then what are you gonna do?”  
  
A sigh.  And okay, there’s a look in those eyes that I never, _ever_ , want to see on a human being’s face again.  Pain and heartbreak - they just don’t cover what I just saw right there with Bucky Barnes.  Not even close.    
  
But he answers me anyway.  “I’ll still be his friend.  I’ll always be his friend.  ‘Till the end of the line.  I promised him that.”   
  
I close in for the kill.  “So are you going to kiss him properly or not?”   
  
This time, it’s a proper kiss, but it’s a chaste one, right on the lips.    
  
It does the trick.   
  
Steve wakes up.   
  
And the kiss doesn’t stay chaste for very long.  Steve Rogers isn’t slow on the uptake after all.  He pulls Bucky close and finally the two idiots have a serious Proper Romantic Kiss and —   
  
Yeah, I get out of there fast.  Some things you shouldn’t be seeing.    
  
So Nat’s so happy that she runs over and plants a good one on me and wow, thank you, that was just awesome.  Tony wants to throw an Official Captain Spangles Finally Gets His Cherry Popped Party but we get Pepper to sit on Tony for that.   Thor pouted about it.  He likes a good party.  Bruce reminds us that it would be a fantastic idea to give the Super Soldier Boyfriends their privacy and herds us out of their apartment.    
  
Phil wins the pool.  I don’t know how he managed to guess at “Faerie Spell” but okay, he wins the pool anyway.   
  
We had to deal with a few days of Steve grinning goofily at everyone and everything and okay, Barnes had a goofy grin too, to say nothing about the guys having some interesting marks in visible places that we really, really didn’t want to think about.  But as Sam points out, they’re both happy and finally together and done with the Ridiculous Pining from Afar Thing and that’s the important thing.   
  
Aurora and her Faerie Queen Godmother get a thank you gift basket of chocolate from a very grateful Steve and Bucky and I guess it’s a done deal to expect that those two would definitely be on the future wedding invitations.  Look, it’s a really bad idea to forget to invite Faeries who do you a good turn, okay?   
  
It’s a little too soon to say, and they lived happily ever after because Barnes still gets nightmares and Steve’s got his own messed-up head to deal with.  But the point is, they’re trying together.    
  
The point is, they’re both _living._    
  
And with every day that passes, they’re getting closer to the happily ever after part.    
  
 _\- end -_

**Author's Note:**

>  **Note:** Despite the “Sergeant Dracula” joke, this is obviously not set in any of the current Blanket Fort Stucky Universes. Some jokes just transcend worlds, okay? Also, who knew Clint had such a knack for storytelling? 
> 
> I cracked again. With Maleficent. I am sorry that I’m not sorry.


End file.
